What with the inmates running the asylum, you might think it's an odd time to talk about what I've been calling the OPA (Osawatomie Policy Agenda), i.e., the concrete ideas that grow out of the speech President Obama gave recently in Kansas... ideas in the spirit of actually building an economy that works a lot better for a lot more of us.
The New York Times editorial page weighs in on the same topic this week, stressing these policy objectives:
- Job creation;
- Stopping foreclosures;
- Financial market regulation;
- Raising taxes, reducing the deficit
On jobs, the editorial board wants the president to "continue to offer stimulus bills that include spending for public works, high-tech manufacturing and an infrastructure bank."
True that, but the short term is pretty much toast. Remember, this battle-to-the-death we're having over payroll tax/unemployment insurance are for measures that are already in the 2011 economy... no one is anywhere close to considering anything new. Still, we can't give up on the present and unexpected things can happen in an election year (e.g., tapping federal help to prevent local layoffs is a very long shot, but it's about the smartest thing we could do right now, as each month we add private sector jobs and shed public ones -- and those are teachers, cops, etc.).
That said, when it comes to jobs, I'd advocate thinking and planning for the long term and I'd start with this chart. In every decade since the 1950s, employment grew 20-30%; in the 2000s, it grew 4%. And then it fell of a cliff.
What happened?
I've suggested a number of reasons for the slowdown, including accelerated labor-saving technology, allocative inefficiency (the devotion of too many resources to unproductive financial engineering), weak startups, the inequality feedback loop (extreme income concentration generates less robust employment growth), and lousy public policy (regressive taxation, the wars, unregulated asset bubbles, etc.). But more work needs to be done on what went wrong and how to fix it.
At the very least, we want a Federal Reserve committed to full employment and a public investment strategy that supports innovative growth in expanding sectors, like clean energy.
And that, to repeat, is at the very least. If there's one thing I've learned in decades of analysis, it's that it takes truly full employment for the American economy to really work. Only with very tight labor markets will we see the benefits of growth broadly shared. Absent such conditions, workers simply lack the bargaining power it takes to get employers to bid up compensation such that the gains from productivity growth reach more than just the top few percentiles.
If that 4% job growth (see * in chart), or anything like it, sticks, we will need ambitious infrastructure programs not just in bad times but in good times too. We'll need explicit manufacturing policy that builds domestic supply chains (because that's where the job quantities are). We'll need national, multi-year programs to repair the public schools, replace the failing electric grid, ensure that both the old and the young have the care they need to not just survive, but flourish.
Again, it may seem strange to start planning such an agenda when the polar opposite is transpiring in the halls of power. But then again, maybe this is exactly the right time. Maybe, as Congress creeps under the impossibly low bar we've already set for them, it's actually the right time to start promoting a new vision.
After all, I can hardly stand to look at the old one, and I can't be alone in that sentiment.
This post originally appeared at Jared Bernstein's On The Economy blog.
Rep. Keith Ellison: If It Ain't Broke, Break It
Deborah Weinstein: House Republicans: Gambling With Millions of Lives
Putting the politics aside, the Senate's filibuster rule not only totally frustrated the will of the 2008 electorate, but it totally demoralized us all as well. Why should we voters work like hell to elect a President or a Congress that reflects our views, if a Senate rule can simply nullify the results of a national election?
Our system of is government is broken and is anti-democratic and will never get better until we the people adopt constitutional amendments barring the filibuster rule in both houses of Congress and reverse Citizens United. Until then, voting on the national level is truly a genuine waste of time.
First, the House of Representatives is the lower section of our bicameral legislative branch, and does not have a filibuster.
The Senate is the "upper house." The purpose of the Senate is to slow down legislation, to prevent bad but popular legislation from going through the legislative branch. The filibuster serves a useful purpose. It prevents the majority from bulldozing the rights of the minority, and purposely slows down the process to scrutinize populist and other legislation that might be bad for the republic.
You want a democracy, but we were founded as a democratic republic, not a democracy. Senators were not directly elected by the people so that there would not be government by rabble; otherwise, we would end up with big government, bad debts, and a disfunctional government.
The best solution is to repeal the 17th Amendment, bring back literacy tests, and repeal the 24th amendment, imposing a $200 fee for voting so that those whodo not work and receive a government largesse do not elect candidates who will redistribute the wealth from the workers to the welfare recipients.
If, as you argue, the Senate was created for the express purpose of slowing down legislation, then surely its very existence is enough to do that; hence, the reason the why Founders did not insert into the Constitution a filibuster rule.
(The filibuster rule allows one lone senator to block call up of a bill for debate by speaking on it on the floor of the Senate for as long as he or she wants until he or she yields back the floor or until 60 senators vote to bring debate to a halt, called cloture. Today, senators no longer have stand on the floor of the Senate and talk endlessly. See, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” for a classic example of filibuster of the 1940s. Today, a senator simply files a notice of intent to filibuster – a piece of paper – and he can stay home and prevent call up of a bill for debate unless 60 out of 100 senators vote to stop debate; that is the modern filibuster. See Wilipedia, “Filibuster in the United States Senate.” This authority is not granted by the Constitution.)
Your proposals for voting standards are ludicrous. That's half a week's pay for people working minimum wage jobs. That's more than most 18 year old's make in a week. Does being able to read make you less politically naive? I would agree the potential is there, but I would argue that the majority of adults in this country can read but still have no idea who their representative for their district is, thus, reading does not equate to political awareness.
Eliminate the repatriation tax, so that 1.2-2 trillion dollars of overseas profits can be returned and invested in this country.
Eliminate the capital gains tax. That money was already taxed, pre-investment. You will see investment skyrocket, and 201Ks will return to being 401Ks.
Slash the government. Bring all our troops home, except for the navy, which must be built up.
Slash AID TO Dependent Children, which encourages illegitimacy and laziness. Eliminate welfare and replace it with workfare. Eliminate the Commerce, HUD, Energy, Education, departments.
Cut the number of government agencies from 2000 (!!!) to 500, by merging responsibilities.
Bring back the Civil Service Exam, and fire government workers who lied on the job applications. Eliminate wasteful contracting and outsourcing by government.
Slash foreign aid. Quit spending tens of billions of dollars defending Saudi Arabia et al.
Drill for oil off of the coast of California and in the Gulf of Mexico. Encourage oil and gas drilling.
Open Yucca Mountain, and encourage safe nuclear plants.
5 government agencies at the maximum.
Taxation and job creation are "fears." The consequences of the past 8-12 years or more have yet to fully unfold (e.g. knowledge of the corruption is only beginning to come to light). These consequences and the ensuing fallout along with the increase in natural catastrophes will be our real challenge. It would be wiser for us to acknowledge this and begin preparation instead of letting our leaders continue their obfuscation and deception.
The communications infrastructure in the US is hardly what it should be for the wealthiest nation in the world. Our power infrastructure is challenged by storms every spring and winter. Overtone's link to the Aesop Institute provides a glimpse of real issues at hand; preparing for natural catastrophes by shoring up nuclear power plants and our grids, strengthening communications systems, developing cheap, green power.
Dan Ackerson, GM's CEO stated, "they are resistant to change." That is the case with many. But change provides opportunity. Radical change is what our founding father's sought, not the hype served up by a puppet president feigning to lead a world power which should be leading the world to a better place because we can.
I would publish that chart a little bit less. If you assign the Presidents to the those columns the implication would be that Reagan was bad, Clinton was good, George W was bad but Obama appears unelectable. We are in horrible shape but the Republicans will only make it worse.
Imho, I would add another item to your list of reasons for disappearing jobs. Washington has been pushing money up the ladder hitting the poor and shrinking the middle class. We know the affect this is having on demand. I would suggest that a similar phenomenom is occuring in respect to small and mid-size business.
Tax loopholes and corporate welfare from the Feds are a boon to Big Business. But Multi-Nationals are simply aggregating wealth, moving jobs over seas and monopolizing their industries. Big Business is pushing out or snapping up smaller businesses. Big Business has the automation and efficiencies of scale and access to foreign labor that small businesses don't. Big Business has also been able write off their debts to the small businesses that support them through bankruptcy.
Small and midsize business are the bulk of our true job creators but the wealthy are squeezing them out of business. Washington isn't supporting job creators. Washington is arming radical economic terrorists. And Labor and small business are their enemy
Maybe if Americans wake up to the fact that the American dream is quickly becoming the American nightmare.
Except for intrinsically governmental functions, the government cannot create jobs. Only demand creates jobs, temporary demand creates temporary jobs (this has been proved over and over again). We have no idea what tomorrow's jobs will look like, and only the market can decide that.
- Stopping foreclosures;
Terrible idea, this is simply the continuation of the federal government's policy of papering over the wealth creation gap by creating (and now sustaining) a bubble. In an era of falling wages, as long as home prices fall faster, the middle class ends up ahead. Artificially propping up home prices as wages inevitably and irreversibly fall seems to be designed to punish the middle class.
- Financial market regulation;
Absolutely. Regulate for transparency, access, and equal treatment. Do not regulate for specific outcomes (that's part of what caused today's catastrophe).
- Raising taxes, reducing the deficit
Cut spending, reducing the deficit. Any plan that starts with "raising taxes" will, first, be rejected. And second, would fail in any case (it will simply move the problem to a higher plateau).
The only way out is through a process of market driven reallocation of labor and capital. Unfortunately, we are held captive by a) conventional thinking, and b) a pervasive citizen-government fantasy zone.
Throwing money at the problem has not helped.
Sure Rightie, Social programs, yea thats the ticket.
Now, back to Rush Limbaugh.
-AJB
Stop favoring company's like GE who doesn't pay a whit of tax (and you complain about the rich not paying their fair share)..
If the owners of the company want to live in a foreign country and have their company there, let them LEAVE...
Open up drilling in the gulf, Alaska, and go for the pipeline that Canada is threatening to give all the oil to China with.....that will open up and create all kinds of jobs, plus we'll have more income from taxes for the poor to live on and make us a stronger country.....but oh wait...too many liberals worried about Global warming....do me a favor, look at a globe...point out all the countries trying to save our world by producing less pollution...WHAT..you can't find any besides UNITED STATES AND CANADA? And yet, you think you can 'Change" the global warming by making us use wind power....it's a losing game one, a costly game which we are not only losing our shirts over but also our job strength because we are afraid to drill. I think this will go down as the dumbest American Society since it was established.
National Hiring Day - This is a day that corporations are encouraged to hire new employees. Corporations are called on to put patriotism first and help their country in
hard times. Those corporations that cannot hire, are asked to stop firing for that month.
http://wp.me/p5S9X-nv
Let's say you run a business, by hiring one person, you are a part of this. Many others hire one or more. Then because you (and others) hired one or more, thousands have gotten jobs, lost insecurity and worry, and are ready to buy from you and others. AND they have a good reason to support your company. Just one hire from enough businesses and the whole country has a big boost. You help a little and get good will from thousands that find jobs, in return.
National Hiring Day would do all that, helps all, costs nothing, etc. Why not do what just might really work?
Then too corporations have been given a lot. Time to give back a little.
Time for corporations to look outside their Ivory Towers. You can't make record profits, beg the government for tax breaks, and subsidies, and turn your back on Americans on a National Hiring Day, and expect business as usual.
Wise business leaders will not oppose rational jobs ideas, but embrace them to win over more customers.